RS

MEMBER DIARY

Iraq and Afghanistan: Are We in It to Win It?

You don’t have to be an infantry General to see all these many years that Iraq and Afghanistan operations have been “clusterf–ks.” We haven’t “won” in Iraq, and we surely have not won, and will not have “won,” in Afghanistan—drones notwithstanding. From the controlled footage that trickled out, we’ve seen combat mainly by “rifle companies.” They’re no longer called that, of course, armed as they are with impressive automatic weapons. But what we still have are stout guys firing away from trenches, from behind village stone works, and out on vast, exposed ground, trudging along in close formations (very painful to watch), exchanging “rifle fire” with a powerful, wily, elusive enemy high up and well hidden in the byzantine Afghan mountains.

Old vets are loath to say so, but we know these guys are caught up in battles of attrition; we kill some of them, they kill some of us. We know “We’re making progress” is just so much command BS from field commanders and general officers—whose hands, at any rate, are tied by Washington and the leftist politics of this failing Commander in Chief.

It’s always been so: to our soldier kind and to most savvy Americans, “retreat” is anathema; “defeat” is never an option. But as things stand, we just won’t ever “take” the Afghan mountains, “secure” Iraq, and utterly destroy an asymmetrical, globally dispersed, elusive enemy—an enemy with centuries of time on its side. And now they’re even inside the American wire, cloaked and moving among Islamic communities, right here in our New York, New Jersey, and Virginia “back yards.”

Our present wobbly government says euphemistically, we will “officially end operations” in Iraq. America now “officially ends” its wars. Rest assured our global enemy, the Islamic Jihadists, will fill the vacuum of our ignominious exit in very short time, pushing Iraq back to Square One. After that, it’s anyone’s guess what unfolds.